FIRE, suspected to be electrical in origin, completely destroyed a dwelling house and gutted a supermarket at Meten-Meer-zorg yesterday morning. It was the second such disaster on West Coast Demerara in two days, following another at Stewartville the day before, the fire consumed a  family business, Savers Choice, popularly known as ‘Bulla Store’ and the residential building at Lot 95 Met-en-Meerzorg.
Both buildings were reduced to ashes by the blaze which resulted in millions of dollars loss, left three persons homeless and two unemployed.
Marissa Rajkumar, 14, among those who lost a home, related that, about 07:30 hrs, members of the household were awakened by smoke and small flames emanating from the bond in which was the main Guyana Power & Light (GPL) electricity connection.
The teen said she, her mother, Fazeela Hamid and her sister, Selina, all called for an uncle who tried, unsuccessfully to extinguish what turned into a conflagration.
Marissa said, while the police were on their way, the occupants appealed to passersby for help but, unfortunately, received none.
Selina said she only heard her mother shouting for her to collect the passports and leave the place immediately but the only thing she saved was her Holy Bible.
A distraught Hamid declared she could not believe what had happened.  
Meanwhile, Damayantia Rahim grieved about the loss of her job as she stood in the crowd watching the destruction of her workplace.
She said she had been employed there for approximately eight years.
According to her a fire tender arrived on the scene without water and it took almost half an hour for its attendants to source some and start dousing the structures.
Several empty glass cases and a few cooking gas cylinders were saved by the owners but some things were looted.
Chief Fire Officer Marlon Gentle, subsequently, reported that the destruction originated from the dwelling house behind the supermarket.
He said it may be electrical because one of the occupants was doing something in the kitchen when sparks from the electrical wiring caught the meter.
Gentle said two fire tenders responded and prevented the spread to other nearby buildings.